O'Connell frustrated and disappointed by Ireland defeat to All Blacks

Paul O'Connell admitted that Saturday’s comprehensive 42-19 defeat to New Zealand was both frustrating and disappointing.

The Ireland forwards coach felt that the team gifted the home side some valuable scores, which made a tough task even tougher as the All Blacks moved out of sight following a four-try blitz in the second half of the opening period.

The former Ireland lock was full of praise for the All Blacks defence, holding firm while making it very difficult to score at Eden Park.

"It’s frustrating and disappointing," said O’Connell, speaking to RTÉ Sport. "They are a very good side and they’re always going to score tries, [but] we can’t give them access to those tries, which we did a little bit unfortunately with some of our play.

"We got turned over at the ruck and they scored pretty quickly and then an attack on their 22, unfortunately we put the ball down and they go the length of the field, and those kind of tries are the ones you can’t give away against them. Those tries are frustrating.

"We were over the line a few times and not to get those scores is tough. You need to take every single chance that you can get."

O’Connell admitted Ireland struggled at the set-piece and as a result it prevented the team from implementing their own game-plan effectively.

"It was poor, there’s no doubt about it," said O’Connell.

"From a scrum point of view, some of the interpretation was frustrating, but that is something we have to address and figure out.

"We had 17 lineouts and lost four of them. Another we won but lost immediately on the ground, so effectively five lineouts [lost]. Two were good lineouts, but we got our drill wrong, and two they had good defence, which you would expect against New Zealand.

"And that was a frustrating